2004-04-03 04:00:00 PDT Jerusalem -- Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said in an interview published Friday that he had given orders to halt development of Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip, in a step toward an eventual Israeli withdrawal.

"We have to get out of Gaza, not to be responsible any more for what happens there," Sharon told the Israeli newspaper Maariv, in one of several interviews granted to the Israeli media before the Passover holiday. "I advise you to take me seriously. I have the power to do this."

The prime minister, who is to meet with President Bush on April 14, is seeking U.S. help with the withdrawal.

Sharon also said that once Israel completed its West Bank separation barrier, Palestinians living illegally in Israel -- who he said numbered in the tens of thousands -- would be expelled.

With tensions running high, hundreds of Israeli riot police clashed Friday with thousands of Palestinians, including stone-throwers, at a Jerusalem holy site in the largest eruption of violence there since the Palestinian uprising began in September 2000.

At least 20 Palestinians were injured, and 14 were arrested, after Israeli forces moved in to disperse Palestinians throwing stones at Israeli police on the site, the man-made plateau sacred to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as the Temple Mount.

Palestinian witnesses said the incident had begun with about a dozen youths throwing stones at police stationed on the plaza. Hundreds of Palestinians were throwing stones, police said.

Wielding batons and firing rubber pellets and stun grenades, the police then drove thousands of Palestinians inside the al-Aqsa Mosque. Police spokesman Gil Kleiman said that some Palestinians had continued throwing stones from the mosque doors.

Police then chased the remaining Palestinians inside and secured the doors for at least an hour, until Muslim authorities and the police negotiated an agreement for all those inside to leave peacefully, Kleiman said.

In some of his interviews, Sharon echoed longstanding threats against Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, saying that he had "no insurance policy." An Israeli official said that Sharon considered himself still bound by a commitment not to harm Arafat that he gave three years ago to Bush.

"Anyone who kills a Jew or harms an Israeli citizen, or sends people to kill Jews, is a marked man, period," Sharon was quoted as telling the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

Sharon made his comments about halting development in Gaza to Israel's largest daily, Yediot Ahronot. The newspaper also reported that Sharon said Israel would continue to supply electricity and water to Gazans after a withdrawal -- but that it would weigh cutting off such supplies if Palestinian attacks continued.

An Israeli official said that the government would continue to finance settlement projects in Gaza that were "in the pipeline," as well as those that were deemed necessary for security, such as fences. However, he said, "expansion of greenhouses, and that kind of stuff, that will be halted."

All of Gaza's 21 Jewish settlements are to be removed under Sharon's plan.

Maariv quoted Sharon as saying that in the northern West Bank, Israel would abandon four isolated enclaves -- Ganim, Kadim, Homesh and Sanur. A Sharon spokesman, Raanan Gissin, confirmed the remarks.

A Palestinian gunman attacked the West Bank settlement of Avnei Hefets early today, killing an Israeli man and wounding his daughter before he was shot and killed, rescue services said.

Israeli troops killed two Palestinians in separate incidents in Gaza and the West Bank.